Deeplinks Blog posts about Anonymity

What happens when ICANN's rules that require domain name registrars to publish domain owners' personal data in a public database, conflict with the data protection laws in countries where those registrars operate?

As of this month, 567 relays from our 2014 Tor Challenge are still up and running—more than were established during the entire inaugural Tor Challenge back in 2011. To put that number in perspective, these nodes represent more than 8.5% of the roughly 6,500 public relays currently active on the entire Tor network, a system that supports more than 2-million directly connecting clients worldwide.

Facebook claims its practice of forcing users to go by their "real names" (or "authentic identities" as Facebook spins it) makes the social network a safer place. In fact, the company has often claimed that the policy protects women who use the social media platform, even when faced with community advocates pointing out that the policy facilitates harassment, silencing, and even physical violence towards its most vulnerable users.

EFF has long believed that the First Amendment is as important to thinking about the NSA's spying as the Fourth Amendment. When the government can track to whom you talk, when and for how long, like it did with the telephone records collection under section 215 of the Patriot Act, it knows with whom you associate. When it tracks who talks to politically active organizations, it scares people out of participating in the political and social issues of the day.

So what's the status of our flagship case raising those First Amendment concerns, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA? How does the passage of the USA Freedom Act change what could happen to that case? We thought it was time for a short update.

EFF has joined 46 organizations and 105 individuals to oppose a new domain registration proposal in front of the Internet Corporation for Assignment of Names and Numbers (ICANN). From Academy Award-winning documentary film director Laura Poitras to the National Council of Women's Organizations to Chayn, an organization that works to combat domestic violence in Pakistan, the vast array of organizations and individuals signed on to this letter reflects just how misguided this proposal is. We hope ICANN will reject the flawed proposal, which comes from a smaller ICANN Working Group, especially in light of this unified opposition.